Over the next few months, expect to find the more than 400 fired writers of the community website Suite101.com blending themselves into new writing opportunities and adventures. This is interesting, mainly because 'fired' is usually a word reserved for people who were terminated from paid positions. All I can say is that the disorganized way that the upper-echelon of Suite101 chose to end the topics of their honest and trusting minions could only be described as getting fired.
The termination was abrupt. Topics vanished into thin air. Even people who had been there for four years were wondering how to get into their administrative and editor areas. I like to call it, "The Big Wipe," for lack of fairer terms. Of course, they can do whatever they want. It was all in the fine print, but there's a little more to the story.
The new Suite101.com is now inviting people, including their ex-people, to go through their elaborate application process. That's great, except some of us were writing on topics for months and years with a liberated passion of one who writes for the pure love of writing.
Some people had written hundreds of articles for years, with many followers and fans. Instead of clearly announcing the changes on their main page, they weaseled messages into forums and message boards about the impending mass writers' grave they were soon to create. Instead of inviting loyal writers to continue with their topics, or perhaps with a new one, they axed what appears to be almost every writer.
After all of that, they now want us to apply. This includes a hefty application and more articles per month. But isn't it great? They're going to pay the new writers. Yes, there will be big, fat paying positions with clean topic titles and no willy-nilly writing. The new Suite101 writers' wallets will swell with seventy-five bucks per month for ninety days. After that, it all depends on how many thousands of page impressions you get. Exactly, it's kind of like a new About.com, but with writers who get excited about writing 700 word articles for pennies under a mysterious orb of fidgety and fickle executives.
Article comments
1 - Catana
I'm not surprised. I wrote for the Suite years ago--for the amazing amount of $35.00 a month. Then they decided to stop paying. I would have kept on, but got tired of the restricted format. I pop in every now and then, and have watched the site become more and more commercially oriented, less reader friendly.
I can see deleting topics that aren't updated regularly or have very little traffic, but a previous announcement would have been a courtesy. It certainly does seem like a rerun of about.com's callous treatment of its writers.
2 - Christopher Rose
I know of a site that is always open to good and interesting writers and would never delete their work. Now what's it called? Oh yes, BLOGCRITICS!